The_Capt

Ya, that all tracks. I mean I get the sense that the RA is going with what they know and trained for, massed fires. Not a lot of nuance, just dropping the sky - advance-repeat. I was referring specifically to how it compares to UA artillery usage, which appears more precise and, as you note, directed at disrupting in depth. Do we have any idea what the c-arty fight looks like? Is the UA bagging more RA artillery than it is losing? Are the RA guns starting to go silent due to gun losses and logistics attrition? Are RA lost crews being replaced with trained crews or just guys lobbing shells? I sense that the ability to "hit deep" has been a definitive success for the UA in Phase I, and I suspect they are building on that in Phase 2, but what data do we have?

What data are you seeing? I am not sure what "artillery supremacy" means to be honest, never really heard it before. I am guessing it means "our arty all the time, and none of theirs" but that does not seem reasonable. Hell, the TB had indirect fire. I think of this more along lines of capability trajectories. Russian artillery seems to be getting dumber and employing more mass (or trying to), while the UA seems to be getting better, faster and more precise. This whole thing is wrapped around "deep strike", which would include c-btty, logistics - back to SLOC nodes, apparently and reserves, and in that battle Ukraine seems to be able to Find, Fix and Finish much better than whatever system the Russians are using.

So I also think that this will be Russia's play, likely trying to hold on until either the West loses interest, Ukraine burns out and/or they can see an opportunity to go back on the offensive. By going to the defensive Russia and freezing the conflict, Russia may be able to reduce Ukrainian options while sustaining theirs, and possibly see openings for new ones. All war is negotiation, a frozen conflict puts Russia in a better bargaining position as they can drag this out, shift the domestic narrative to one of "defending against attacks on Russia from the evil West". Big problem needs to solved first - how do they freeze the conflict? Can they? We have been watching for over two months and I am still scratching my head at what is going on here. But for arguments sake let's play this out and discuss what a Russian Defence would look like: Strategic - I am going to assume they are going to dig in along the lines they have in order to create bubbles where they can have referendums, create "republics" and get people to spend rubbles. They will likely keep stuffing those lines with as much cannon fodder as they can find and hope that sheer mass in trenches can attrit Ukrainian and Western willpower. In sum, they will lose a lot of people but so long as Ukraine loses as a similar rate, the strategic equation may tip in their direction. Good plan, but let's see what it is resting on. Operational - 70+ days into this thing and the Russians have still not solved for setting operational conditions, and likely will not be able to in the future. The air space remains at rough parity, or in reality porosity, ISR and information remain out of Russian reach in any meaningful manner and logistics still remain a problem - even in the defence. The Russian's ability to Shield their forces remains in serious question as Ukraine is accelerating its deep strike capability either through indirect fires, missiles and/or NLOS self-loitering munitions. So a Russian operational defence is likely going to, 1) be visible from space, 2) static because manoeuvre is going to be very hard and the Russians have already demonstrated that they are not to good at this, and 3) have its entire operational system in reach of Ukrainian ISR and weapons with no real counter. And then there is the frontages. I am not sure what Russia has left in the hopper as they slowly bleed out on this last offensive. However, conservatively we are talking an approx 850km frontage from Kherson to Kharkiv, so Western Front WW1 length. To even try to make that airtight, particularly without solid C4ISR is going to take in the order of more than 1 million troops (that is about 1100 troops per km of frontage - depth and rotations). The Russians do not have that right now, not even close. They would need to generate those men and even "here is your uniform and a rifle" takes weeks, months if you want anything that resembles an able fighting force. Without that force the ridiculous frontage is going to be extremely porous, likely for months. Now let's go down a level and see where the real problems lie. Tactical- Given the Operational conditions, we know the Russians will not be able to do a complete linear defence in depth, so, knowing the Russians they will go with strong points. Due to political considerations, the Russians will not be able to adopt the Ukrainian style of warfare and trade space for manoeuvre - and they probably could not pull it off if they had the green light to try. The Russians will shoot for mutually supporting/firebase concepts much like they did in Afghanistan and something that resembles a mobile reserve system to plug gaps. You can see the tactical problems stack up already. Nothing in this was has signaled that high concentrations of troops, even dug in, is a good idea. The Ukrainians, being fed Western ISR, will be able to see exactly where those strongpoints and reserves are, and importantly, where they are not. So what those "strong points" actually become are deathtraps as the Ukrainians, infiltrate - the porous frontage, likely with irregulars and SOF, isolate - by hitting the mobile reserve and logistics in depth, and destroy - Russian tactical strong points in detail with a combination of freakishly accurate artillery fire and PGMs, with an mech follow up/clean up. [BTW, this is very much how the Iraqi security forces re-took Mosul] The UA will employ drones everywhere and one strongpoint at a time erode entire fronts until they crack. Here I am very interested in the time race: can Russians push troops forward and dig them in at the same or better pace than the UA can blow them up? My guess is "no" but we will see. An obvious solution for the Russians to this is a robust and effective screen in front of those defensive positions to prevent infiltration...sure, but recon screens have been something the Russians appear to have lost all knowledge of and the majority of the trained troops they had for this job are all making sunflowers right now...and for an 850km frontage they are going to need a lot of them. So back to my original question - how can the Russians freeze this conflict? Particularly when the tactical and operational conditions do not point to an easy answer? Next question, what happens if the Russians cannot freeze this conflict?

S’ok, Afghanistan was my second war, tough time etc. Still is a bit of a trigger. Honestly I do not think we could ever have enough resources to win that war without full occupation and then they would have ate at us for a century if we tried that. Afghanistan needs to fix Afghanistan and there are layers of issues there that made it a doomed mission for us from the get go, which frankly makes all those kids dying there such a waste. Anyway, don’t mind me. From experience the math is easy at one level, and very hard the deeper you go. The trick is figuring out which of the maths matter and when. Sometimes one has to go with the gut and instinct, other times you need facts and stats because they can tell more than what you are seeing. Messy miserable business all of this, but in the end someone has to do it.

You have heard of urban planning for traffic, of course? Yes, you can use math to describe human behaviour, or grocery stores would have too much or too little produce, buses would have no idea what routes to run and how often and the multi-trillion dollar industry if marketing would be in serious trouble. "Oh but these aren't war", I hear those of you who are climbing on Clausewitz's grave to die upon. You have heard of military logistics? They do all sorts of math based on "human behaviour" in warfare, lots of margins and "spoilage". If humanity was an impossible puzzle that only artistic genius could figure out, we could never keep them gassed up, fed and bombed up. Hell we have developed some pretty simple methods to transform those mysterious humans into whatever we want...we call it Basic Training. And this is without even looking at the hard physics frames around humanity, like we all need sleep, O2, food and water, a hug now and again, and we can't breath underwater for very long and cannot fly unassisted. So what? Oh we are a complex, bordering on chaotic system at times but most people are NPC in this game of life, going around their individual loops day in and day out. What about "crisis", they can plot fire escape planning based on how fast we will cram an exit, so there is that. So what to war? Not sure to be honest. I don't know how far more complex modeling of human system in warfare will take us. We applied some pretty simple ones here and were proven more right than wrong and we even used "simple math" like how many tanks Russian's had abandoned. We basically had a data stream showing all this and the calculus that the Russians were screwed was not that hard to come up with. I think it is important to understand that math will likely remain indicative and not definitive, like weather forecasting. We can say with high accuracy what a series of observed phenomenon are telling us, and shockingly we will us math. However, the context and human-meaning of those phenomenon likely will need human interpretation for some time. I do not believe we will have models that say definitively "and by Tues you will have won the war", this is like saying "on Tues, at 10:03 am, the wind on your deck will be 12 kph, from this exact direction". What I do want to some math behind those indicators. So you know that when the Afghans all start doing something, not normal, we can pick it up and have a good idea why. Quantitative assessment that links back to qualitative. It is the 21st century, I do not buy this "war is all art...let me listen for god's voice and we will know what to do". Humans are very predictable in many ways and their behaviour follows patterns. We would do better understanding them and using that to inform us in warfare, as opposed to this weird "finger painting towards victory". The use of modeling has been part of war since the beginning, the question is how much we trust machines to do and how much we leave to the human minds, the answer is likely somewhere in the middle, at least for now. So as to math, one can oversimplify, and one can under-value, which we have seen both on this thread alone.

Does it now? I would love to hear what those x and y's are, and I am sure glad someone has got them all figured out. Before my present gig, I got pretty deep into COIN - was kinda a thing back in the day - and no such metric exist. Why...and we are back to non-linear. For example, we had no idea what the general insurrection point in Afghanistan was but the Soviets had already proven that too many "x's" and "the women come out to cut up your remains", too few and the TB has all sorts of freedom. So what? It is not about troop ratios or "boots on sand" it is about local buy-in. But hey I like your plan better, lets do simple math and feel better. As to this war, no I am sorry but the math is not simple. I think we will be unpacking those numbers for the next 20 years trying to figure out what happened

Or we can play whack-a-mole until we tire out and go home in 2021. This slide is actually the tip of an iceberg. Our primary issue is that it is not accurate, it is that we do not have the processing power to actually employ it dynamically. Many of those linkages are non-linear feedback loops and we do not have the math to model them accurately. This is akin to "solving-for-economy" and has broken bigger and better models. Makes the good old days when it was just all about killing look nostalgic...up until this war of course.

Ya, this is the point where most decide to tap out on these sorts of concept discussions. There are very few, even in the business, who like to get down into the deep end here. One starts to question one’s perception of reality after awhile. And then the “suits” steal it, slap it on power-points and misuse and abuse them to their ends in buzzword hurricanes. Basically go with my first post this morning, it is how it all links back to the current war.

Maybe? I have to be honest, I have read so much of this stuff that I can't even tell what is mine and what I have pilfered. Decisions and Options are very closely linked but they are matter and anti-matter. A Decision, is by-definition, a death of local-options. Once it is made all other local-options die accept the one that is chosen, here the laws of physics are a harsh mistress and we cannot be in two places at once type of thing. I say "local", because a decision has a limited area of influence in conceptual options spaces, again time. For example, A Russian invasion to cut of Lviv is locally impossible; however, in 100 years it will once again be possibly viable - one has to think of these things as dynamic space. However, a Decision can also lead to more Options, creating them out of the death of the others, how one manages this space is the art of strategy in my mind, but as you point out this is nothing new really. I also argue that "Decision" is not a binary term. As I mentioned before there are flavours of Decision (positive, negative, null and strange) which have been historically demonstrated. I suspect that there are the same sort of concepts at play in Options (they are more than "good or bad") as well to be honest but I have thought that one through. Another way to think of it, back to Options, is each is a road to that shining city on a hill. If I have 100 possible roads, some bumpier than others, and you only have two this does not automatically guarantee victory for me but my probability is higher. I need not only work to push down these roads, which will automatically close off others, I need to compress your roads and sustaining or creating new ones of my own. This way as uncertainty and shock comes in from the future I can weather it much better than you...normally.

This is modeled on the levels of warfare so there is a top down linkage: strategy plans and creates capability in long horizons, Operational projects, enables, sustains and commands those capabilities, Tactical employs capabilities to create effects - And then an bottom-up linkage: Effects, create tactical outcomes, which support operational decisions, which when linked via a Campaign Design influence Strategic Options, the interaction of which ultimately support the creation of Strategic Decisions (have not even scratched that one yet) and finally Political Outcomes...which is just code for "new certainties". A Circle of Warfare kinda thing. And Russia's is now in the palliative care stage of this war.

So it has been a awhile, time for another assessment signpost I think. So as I have gone on about, I am a fan of Options Based Warfare, particularly as a tool at the strategic level; however, it links closely to the Operational level as well - although operational level is more obsessed with "decision", and tactical will always be about capability and effects. These are inter-link concepts, another way to think about it: Or another way to think of it - in the linear model (of which I am not a fan): An options based view takes the position that historically the side that can sustain or expand its effective strategic options while compressing those of an opponent will likely win the war. I challenge people to find a counter-example to this and I have yet to hear one. We have plenty examples of desperate tactical actions where the victor was down to that last one option and somehow pulls it off (e.g. Chamberlain's charge at Little Round Top), which makes for great movies; however, real warfare is a brutal and grinding business that cares little for human drama. The harsh reality is that if you are in a war where your effective options are collapsing while your opponents are not, you need to re-assess cause the news "ain't good". So what of this war? Well, we have steadily watch Ukraine sustain and expand their options-sets which appear to include: - Offensives around Kharkiv. - Increased pressure on Kherson. - Increased attacks and pressure at Russian SLOCs, even in Russia itself. - Continued denial swaths of the Black Sea. - Rapidly expanding strategic sustainment and support options from the West. I am sure I have forgotten some. Ukraine, has got a lot of effective strategic options right now. Operationally they have significant freedom of manoeuvre and are attacking along the Russian positions with pretty much impunity as Russia has still failed to establish operational pre-conditions. Strategically, they are ready to fight long or short. They can continue to hit targets within Russia and they are getting more and more capability everyday. Even the UAF appears to have made a resurgence in the last few days. Russia: news not so good. My assessment is that Russia is basically down to two "effective" options left - withdraw, reload and try again later OR, push as much dumb mass at the current lines and try for the long defensive and hope attrition impacts Ukrainian will. All other options Russia had on 23 Feb, have collapsed to these two "best of bad". My point being is that I suspect Russia is rapidly coming to the point, or are already there, where strategic or operational offensive action is off the table. These tepid strained pushes from Izyum and around Lyman are doing pretty much as well as expected - uncoordinated, costly and slow. Once Ukraine masses enough c-artillery and logistics (operational deep strike) capability, this whole Russian offensive will be over and the best they can do is stuff the front line with scared kids, poorly equipped, worse trained and with next to zero unit cohesion. In order to turn this around Russia needs strategic options, and it basically spent them all. For example, a major offensive out of Belarus towards Lviv to effectively cut off western support was an option on 23 Feb, it is no longer viable in the least. The lesson here is that options are built entirely on opportunity power, and once you have spent that...well time to start learning to live with defeat. And I do not care if Russia can muster another 200k troops to push into the Donbas, the days of dismounted unsupported infantry being able to create options is also pretty much over. The critical path will be UA ammunition to kill them all and I am pretty sure the west has got that one covered. Finally, "what about tac nukes?". Well it has been discussed a lot here and elsewhere. The question to my mind is "are tac nukes an effective option". We always have ineffective options, or terrible ones - in universe built on chaos we will always have an infinite amount of "bad options". Tactical nuclear weapons are tailor made for this situation: when you are all outta other options. I frankly do not know what the Russian calculus is on the use of WMDs at the operational level right now. They are way past doctrine and legality, so this will come likely come down to, "will it work?" Most tactical nuclear weapons can do a lot of damage to a few kilometers but these are pretty big frontages we are talking about, so Russia would need to use a lot of them, to have a very good idea exactly where to hit the UA. It is not like Russia can simply fire off 2 or 3 and declare victory. Then Russia has to be concerned about more direct western intervention in Ukraine as a result. The release of tactical nuclear weapons could see a western response that removes what is left of the Black Sea Fleet in an afternoon, NATO troops securing western Ukraine and Kyiv, freeing up every UA member down South and East - and what Putin likely fears most, western airpower. Anyway, I still do not think WMDs are a likely option but that may come down to "will they wont' they, and will we?" in the end. Regardless, if phase 2 of this war was "posturing for endgame", I suspect we may be coming to "endgame" shortly, unless something very unexpected happens. My bet is that the endgame will be Russian's trying to dig in and hold what they have, while the Ukrainian military figures out what offence looks like - given the successes around Kharkiv, I am thinking they already have a pretty good idea.

So Axis 3 - looks like an attempt for a southern axis end run around Slovyansk. River is narrow there, both tanks and IFVs could just bounce that, but logistics and arty are another problem.

I can say there is actually two planned "Red" campaigns, that should not give too much away, I mean "Cold War" after all. As to harder easier, I am not sure yet to be honest. I can say that they will be different from the base game one.

Really glad to hear you finished it. We do not get many who do. The Soviet campaign was designed to be the most realistic, and hardest, of the bunch. BTW, a Major victory is as high as one can get, it is a scoring oddity. Congratulations.

This one is just odd. So NATO only bombed Belgrade during the Kosovo War of '99. The justification was, wait for it...war crimes! See a trend here? After Rawanda, we in the west kinda got sick and tired of 20th century genocides in the 90's (arguably we went back to not really caring a couple decades later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide) so when the Serbs began "doing that ethnic cleansing" thing again, it was a pretty short "nope" from the UN and NATO. I am not sure why Russia would take that as an attack on them, they were on the UNSC that drafted resolution 1199 which kicked the whole thing off. I am at loss at what either Chechen War had to do with us, but hey why not? Look this whole NATO expansion thing was arguably a bad idea but the Russian's seem to think it was a deliberate plan. Seriously, we should let you guys come work in NATO for a day and you would quickly see that "deliberate" and "NATO" are not mutually supporting concepts. NATO is fine at blowing stuff up, but detailed strategic campaigning is not a virtue I think anyone could accuse NATO of being adept at conducting. Finally, all those former satellite states came to NATO for a good reason...what is happening in Ukraine right now. Trust me, it is not them or us, it is you. Russia is acting like a drunken wife beater, pissed off because Ukraine "made you hit them" and blaming city council for all these damned "assault charges"; an entire nation in need of anger management counselling and couples therapy. I got to believe Russians are better than this.

Well we could fight stupid with stupid and claim that Russia has taken the Crimea with intent to hand it back over to the Mongols: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Khanate Edit: Actually if one looks at the map, this entire operation is an attempt to take back the Khanate: Knew it, Putin is a Mongolian puppet...Checkmate!

Well thank you but I am not sure how much is "self-sacrifice" and how much is "institutionalized beyond repair". Do something since you were 18 for long enough and it just becomes too hard to adapt to anything else. This is what made CMCW such a big deal for me personally as I finally saw daylight somewhere else, granted not that far from the homestead, but I will take it. In my experience, a lot of people in my business are not as brave as we think we are, while "pragmatical cowards" are a lot braver than they think. Foot voting, is in itself a form of resistance that takes a lot of guts too. "Peace" indeed.

I actually thought the majority of your post was spot on to be honest. I am no economics expert, but a lot of the trade implications aftermath resonated. I also get that not everyone is going to be able to start insurgency operations (although based on the industrial accident rates in Russia right now, I am starting to wonder if someone has) but “resistance to tyranny” is not only an individual choice, it is a responsibility if one wants to live in a free democracy (and frankly we in the west should pay attention as Russia is what real tyranny looks like). How that resistance is conducted is again very much an individual effort, until it links up and then it can become something else. My point is that unless a reader is a Russian citizen who is fine with the slow but steady decent into exactly what your post outlines very well, they need to do more than simply keep their heads down. Russia does not have anything like a functioning democracy so simply “voting” out a terrible and corrupt regime is off the table. So resistance needs to happen by other means, big and small. Russians themselves likely know what that looks like and are in a better position to do so…my point is, do so. Russian needs “saintly and brave” to stop this war and return it to a internally functioning and contributing nation internationally before it falls apart. Much like Ukraine is demonstrating saintly and brave everyday, Russian opposition to this war needs to step up and try and take their nation back. I would argue this current war is more existential for Russia than it is for Ukraine right now. What this implies for the West and Ukraine is that we also need Russia to figure out how to lose this war and survive, very much preferably with Putin and his gang in prison (or the ground). Our best case scenario right now, if Russia cannot do regime change, is the Chinese gas station, which is not wonderful. Worst case, you pretty much outlined in your original post.

Ya, can't let this one slide. This was a really good post but it fails right about here because it misses a major point. First off I do not subscribe to the "every able body Russian should take their suitcases of money and flee to a less inconvenient locale (i.e. "sunbelt)". This is frankly insensitive and demonstrates a serious western bias: when the going gets tough, well just move to Hawaii in your yacht and sip Mai Tais...it will be fine. What about the rest who cannot afford to move?..."oh I am sure they will figure it out". You make a solid case for a fracturing of the Russian Federation as a result of this, and a severe risk of "significant civil violence". I will simply state it, we are talking about a significant risk of another Russian Civil War here. You note "lack of Moscow military power" as reason this will be avoided, well 1) Will is the primary determiner of civil war, not military power. Savage civil wars have waged with a lot less than what Moscow will have left, and 2) the unfortunate reality of a civil war in a state that has the majority of the worlds nuclear weapons. We came close to this during the break up of the Soviet Union but saner heads prevailed; we have no guarantees this time. I very much think that a NATO v Russia global nuclear war is an extremely low probability. However, a nation in a civil war, cannot guarantee the security of that arsenal and even a small nuclear exchange has global impacts (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00794-y). So what? Well, here we need to recognize a harsh truth - none of us are "safe at our keyboards" in this thing. The stakes are much higher than the normal western ennuie of "war somewhere over there, donate to charity, feel bad and change the channel). So, no, do not "move to the sunbelt", try and do something about it. I am a veteran of two separate wars, both civil in nature, and know exactly what risks we are asking Russian's to take here. However, the risks of "not doing anything" is frankly what got them into this fix in the first place. And there is a risk of a lot more than "trouble over there" at stake here. This is why I keep coming back to "Russia needs to figure out how to lose this war and survive". As to resistance, well simply coming on this board and being exposed to the truth, or at least "other facts" is a first important step. DMS lives in a country where publicly saying "war" is outlawed and they are being lied to daily on their mainstream media. My advice is to "get the word out" any way you can as an important first step. There is opposition to this war in Russia, and there is opposition to the current regime...it needs all the help it can get. We are a small little wargame forum in a great big dangerous world. But it is a platform to exchange ideas and voice apolitical opinions freely (well we do have limits), which in this day and age is hard to find. In a perfect world every Russian would read this website and what we did here and at least a few would go "huh? Wait a minute." That would be enough for a start.

Well to be frank, your dilemma between "radicals" is because the Russian public did nothing as all opposition that was otherwise was suppressed and eventually choked out. There was a time when public action could have preserved your ability to chose, but as you say, that time has passed. This means you are at more difficult choices but anything right now is better than nothing. As to the "golden bridge to retreat", hey man, that is on you guys and it can be filed under "Things to Consider Before Invading Another Nation for Zero Reasons". I did not see Russia moving to lend a hand with our extraction from Afghanistan either. This is big-boy pants time, you break it you buy it and clean up your own messes. I have no doubt the Russian people don't know what we know...that is because the same jerks that pulled you into this mess control your media - which in hindsight was another bad idea and we in the west should take note. As to how Russia is losing, we have literally written pages on this. Russia is losing this war by just about every metric I can think of to be honest - Tactically thru Strategic. The biggest proof of this is that gong show up at Kyiv, one does not burn 20-30% of ones ready field force in a "feint", then recruit every three-legged one eyed dog and merc you can find (seriously, Ethiopians?!), stuff them together with broken units in three weeks and send them out for another doomed offensive in the Donbas. These are not the signs of "minor setbacks". My bet is the Russian political level is going to move the strategic goalposts again. I suspect they will declare victory and liberation, followed by "free and fair elections" because the Crimea playbook. And then dig in and cry crocodile tears as the UA with western help attacks them, justifying whatever crazy comes next. This is assuming that the whole Russian Army doesn't simply collapse under its own weight in a couple weeks. Then there will be a very loud popping sound when those sanctions finally break the Russian economy.

That is simply brilliant.

Wow, crowd sourced logistics as well. Well crisis often drives war forward and I think Ukraine is re-writing more than a few manuals right now.

Ah, the RAP round. Ok, books say it has a 30km range, so about 19 mi. Of course all this counterbattery discussion between M777 etc will be out of date once HIMARs get fully into the game...those are enemy artillery killers, and just about anything else one wants to point them at.

Well you guys are in a tough spot, no doubt. I am not sure you need to "de-russo-fy" to be honest but you likely need to work on what "Russia" actually means. Perhaps an evolution as opposed to a revolution. Russia needs to work some things out, preferably while not invading everyone who pisses it off - I get the irony of the West saying this - but Russia needs to decide if it is going to be a mature member of the international community or join North Korea in the "contained whacko" box. I do stand by my point that as far as the current crisis is concerned, Russia only real strategic play left is to remove Putin and his cronies and pin this entire mess on them on the way out. Fully withdraw, beg for forgiveness, extradite war criminals (and seriously, those actions were not just really immoral, it was really, really dumb), and maybe in a few years after you negotiate oil and gas sales to pay for this mess, we can start thinking about normalization. I get that this may very well break your nation, but you are in a hole right now that only gets deeper as this thing drags on, seriously the path you guys are on is worse. Russia lost this war about a week in. Ukraine has already figured out how to "win and survive", Russia needs to figure out how to "lose and survive" and do it quickly.

M777 checks out if it is the M795 or Excalibur. Only 15 mi if using the old M107 round. Plan here would be to use Switchblades to take out 2S19s and then M777 for D30s if they are stuck with the old M107 rounds. Of course it also depends how far back from the FEBA the Russian guns are and how much risk one want to take. No idea on that French beast.